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216. Encouraging Your Team To Grow Their Skills · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: How do I get my team members to improve their skills?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: How do I motivate my junior developers to become better developers?
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you're in charge of a team or just trying to make a team you're on better, motivating people to improve can be hard.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Today, we're going to talk about the three ways to motivate others to grow their skills, whether you're the leader or whether you're just part of the team.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: As a bonus, I will also cover four examples of how to grow as a team.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Dev Questions podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Software development is more than just writing code.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about the rest of it.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Specifically, we're going to talk today about how to lead team growth.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: To start, we're going to break this down into two categories.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: The first category will be how to lead team growth when you're in charge of the team.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Then we'll talk about the second category, which is when you aren't in charge, but you're trying to help the team get better.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, first off, the three ways for a leader to encourage skill growth.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now, number one is to lead by example.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you are growing as a leader and if you are obvious about doing that, then that will help to motivate people.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Lead from the front.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Show them what to do by doing it yourself.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Making sure that you have things you're working on, that you talk about, hey, these are the things I just learned about.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Making sure that you're showing that you understand that it's important to always be growing your skills.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Don't just say, well, I'm the leader, I don't have time for that.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because that then trickles down to your team who says, I don't have time for that either.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've got stuff to do.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: So lead by example.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now, number two, make it fun, make it easy.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Don't just say, you know, you have to do this, and here's a dry book to read.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Make it fun, make it a competition, or make it a, you know, let's all share what we learned on a Thursday afternoon lunch.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Make it easy by providing tools to learn.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Give them training, you know, resources to help grow.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Don't just say you figure it out.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Make it fun, make it easy, pave the way for your team members to grow and change as developers.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: You want your junior developers to become mid-level developers.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: You want your mid-level developers to become senior developers.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't happen by just happenstance.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to encourage it.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to encourage growth.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to encourage change.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because if the junior developer only ever acts like a junior developer, they'll only ever be a junior developer, even if someone gives them a different title.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you need to make sure that they are growing and changing.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: You want your team to grow.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: So make it fun, but make it easy.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then number three, you're the boss.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Require it.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: This should be part of the job description for everybody who's a developer.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: If if I have developers, I'm making sure that they are working towards improvement, that they're changing, they're growing, they're learning new things.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: And part of that means that I have to say it's part of their job, which means I also have to give them time to do it.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: I can't say you need to work 40 hours a week on fixing things, but also it's required that you study.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that doesn't work.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I need to say, you know what?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to set aside time for you to learn because it's part of your job description.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to include it in our annual review.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk about what did you learn and what are you going to learn next year?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to talk about more often than once a year, we're going to talk about at least quarterly, making sure that you give them time to grow, but that you require them to do that.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is going to be really helpful for your overall organization growth.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it takes some time away from them fixing bugs, but the bugs are always going to be there.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: The more you train up your developers, the less bugs they hopefully create, or at least they'll create more complicated ones.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: But either way, they're creating better things and doing better things to the organization over time.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you're spending a little bit of time up front, but that's going to pay off in dividends over time.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, number three, require it.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I also have three things that you can do if you're not in charge.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you're not the boss, for example, you can't require it.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, what do you do if you're just on the team and you see that maybe you're the only one growing, the only one that's actually trying to learn?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Number one still stands lead by example.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: By doing it yourself and showing off that you become better over time, sometimes just seeing that my teammates getting better than I am, they know more than I do now.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're learning newer things and they're kind of showing off, not in a bad way, but showing off what they can do.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just over here in the same place I've always been.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: That leadership, while not being a leader, can be important.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: So lead by example.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Number two, demonstrate its value.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: And again, this is going to take time.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's not going to be a, hey, this is good, do it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be an overtime thing where you start by leading by example, but then you demonstrate how by having learned this stuff, I can do these new things.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: By having learned this, I can bring these new techniques into the company and make us more efficient, make our code better, make ourselves, you know, do things like automation in our build process so that we have less bugs and we have more testing and maybe even bringing unit testing, whatever it is, you demonstrate the value of what you've learned so that your boss goes, yeah, we need more of that.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you talk about how continual education is important.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then number three, and this usually comes nearer to the end of this process, I wouldn't encourage you.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: You might have an initial conversation, but you should have it later as well.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that is requesting management buy-in.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: So if you talk to your manager and say, hey, I think this would be great for the team, maybe not to day one, because day one, you're coming in and saying, hey, let's change things.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's not usually great.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: You want to get into the groove, figure out the processes and how people work and figure out if this will even work in ways it will work.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: But once you do this for a while and you've demonstrated its value and you've led by example, you can talk to your boss about saying, hey, I would love to see the rest of the team do this as well.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think it'd be great for the organization.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think it'd be great for each team member, and kind of even pitch it on the side to your team members by saying, hey, you want to be able to have a resume that looks great in case anything happens.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: You want to be secure in knowing you can go somewhere else if anything were to happen here.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got both sides of it.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Your organization gets better, and so do your individual coworkers where they can feel more and more confident in their skills.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Approaching from both sides will allow you to hopefully get some buy-in and some growth on your organization starting to value that skill improvement through training.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: So that's three ways if you're not in charge.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, let's talk about some examples of how you might grow as a team.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And this can be whether you're leading the team or making suggestions as a person on the team.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Here's four ways that I have seen be really beneficial in different organizations.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now, every organization is different, so maybe not all four of these will apply, but you figure out what works for you.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And these are just examples.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: You could do different things that might not even be in this list, but that this might kind of trigger that thought process.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, lunch and learn.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: So this is where once a week or once every two weeks or once a month, one person from the department presents something they're learning and they present it to the rest of the organization.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that might just be the department.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: But what they do is they say, hey, I've learned about this new thing.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it might not be something that's immediately applicable to the organization, but it's something they're learning and growing in, and it might trigger some discussions.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: For example, maybe you are a SQL shop and you do C Sharp and you do MVC.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe you learn about Blazor, or maybe you learn about MongoDB, or maybe you learn about SQLite.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like you learn about these different things that might have some application, but not right now.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe these new things might make a certain project easier in the future.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: So presenting these things will help your team members see the new things out there and see how things might be improved over time, even if you don't need it right now.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a bonus here.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, it's very public when you get out in front of people, you kind of have to have actually done the work.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you know that you have to have done the work in order to present, well, then it kind of motivates you to do the work, which is great.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: But also, it helps you learn to present what you've learned.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, that can be scary, but these are your coworkers.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: This is not a huge audience.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is not on stage at a keynote presentation.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, this is just in front of your coworkers.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Learn how to present.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you learn just about anything in software development?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: You practice it.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you practice?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: By doing it.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: So do it in a small setting like this, a lunch and learn will help you with your presentation skills.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you may say, well, Tim, I never want to present on stage.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: I never want to be a presenter.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: These skills are still very important because you're presenting to your boss when you bring up new ideas.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're presenting to maybe stakeholders or a project when you talk about what's good and what's not, or how they should make changes.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: The skills you learn from being able to speak in front of people will help you in a number of areas as a developer.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one, lunch and learns.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: It covers a lot of different areas of value for each individual as well as the entire department.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Number two is scheduling learning time on the calendar.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: So this is where maybe it's you know a Friday afternoon.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: You say, okay, every Friday from noon until quitting time, you're gonna be tasked with learning something new.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: So scheduling that time and not just saying, well, learn something new when you get a chance.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: If it's important, put it on the calendar.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe it's not every Friday, maybe it's every other Friday, but schedule time where you put it on the calendar and say, you will spend this time doing this and block it off the meeting, where you can't schedule other things.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: It will also give people a time to decompress.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe do it on a Wednesday because you know it's halfway through the week.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: They can decompress a little bit before they jump right back into things before they hit the weekend.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: It can help with organizational health and kind of refresh people and re-energize people.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Again, this is an individual thing.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's a team thing.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you have groups where they're learning together.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: That can be valuable as well.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: But whatever it is, you schedule it and say this is important.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Number three, organizational hackathons.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And this is something that I've seen organizations do successfully, not usually very often, maybe once a year, maybe twice a year, but where you set aside a time, not a long time, maybe a week in your calendar.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it might not be something where you're saying, whatever you want to do, but instead say, okay, we're going to build out a little application to help us.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to pick something that is going to make our lives easier, but that's not a top priority.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Often as developers, we get caught up in the what's on fire right now type of project management, where we're always going from fire to fire to fire.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: We never take a time to step back and say, how could I make my life better?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: How could I become faster at what I do?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because again, just like training where you spend a little bit of time up front, but it benefits you over the long term, taking a little bit of time up front to build out an application or a process or something like that where you learn something, but you also create a product that will help you in some way, that can have huge dividends over the next year or multiple years.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: So put together a little hackathon where you try something new.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe again, maybe you're an MVC shop with SQL.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you build something intentionally that is Blazer and MongoDB in order to have just a different experience and some fun doing it because it's something new, but also still building something that is of value.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you learn things from that that you can then take back to your day job.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's number three.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Number four is going to user groups as a division or as a department.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: That can be really valuable.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes, you know, that's your personal time.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's some kind of pushback on that.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And not everyone likes to go.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was in organizations where the minority of developers would go to any type of user group.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: So what can you do there?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you encourage it in some way.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you say, okay, the user group's on Friday at 6 p.m.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'll let you off work at 3 p.m.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: if you agree to show up at the user group.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Give them a little bit of time off in compensation for going to the user group.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Again, showing that it's valuable by kind of paying.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you say, you know what, anybody goes to the user group, I'll pay for dinner afterwards.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Or I'll take you out for appetizers and drinks.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever it is, encourage them by kind of putting your money where your mouth is if you're the boss.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: So figure out a way to really make it valuable to them and kind of show them what that value is by encouraging it in how you present it.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: So at the end of the day, you can't force people to learn.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you're the boss, it's really hard to force people to learn.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you do have to kind of accept the fact that not everyone's going to get on board.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Not everyone's going to try to advance their career.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Not everyone's going to try to grow in who they are or change, because change is hard.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you can't force people to do this.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: But following these four things, and again, the three things earlier, depending on your situation, you'll be able to encourage more people and kind of bring more people along and at least get the people who might, you know, might decide to do it.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: And once you start that snowball rolling, I think you'll see more and more engagement because people will start to get excited about what they're learning.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: They'll start to get excited about the new things and how they can grow as developers.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: And once you start seeing people say, hey, because of this, I was able to survive a layoff.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Or hey, because of this, I was able to get a new promotion.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: That also starts to encourage that growth and encourage people to continue to grow as developers.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think growth is really important as a developer.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Once you stand still, you're falling behind.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that's frustrating at times.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like you're constantly pushing that boulder up a hill.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: But as developers, things are changing all the time.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, sometimes people complain, well, they should stop making changes.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Software is changing because the world is changing too.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the world continues to change.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: 10, 15 years ago, we didn't have a smartphone culture.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: We had a desktop culture.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Things have radically changed in the last 10 to 15 years.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna change again.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: They're changing even now.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so being able to keep on top of that and keep current will protect you in your career and it will help your company move forward as well.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: So learning is really important, and encouraging that growth is really important in your coworkers as well as your employees.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I hope that answers your question.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And as always, I am Tim Corey.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to IamtimCorey.com and enroll in a course.